Another Disaster for Russia's Space Workhorse

A fiery rocket crash couldn't happen at a worse time for Russia's commercial space program.

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Russia's most powerful space launcher plunged to the ground Friday, destroying a state-of­-the-art communications satellite it was supposed to carry to orbit. A Proton-M rocket blasted off from Baikonur launch site in Kazakhstan at 5:42 p.m. Eastern Time on Thursday (Friday morning local time) and was seconds away from reaching an initial Earth orbit before the disaster struck. For the Proton-M, Russia's workhorse rocket, these fiery crashes are happening with tragic regularity.

According to the Russian space agency, Roskosmos, the third stage of the rocket disintegrated at an altitude of 160 kilometers (100 miles). The agency said that all components and onboard propellant from the mission had burned up in the atmosphere. However, witnesses in eastern China reported seeing fiery debris raining down to the ground around the time of the accident. Under normal circumstances, Proton's third stage would have separated less than 10 minutes into the flight and splashed down into the Pacific Ocean east of Japan. The satellite would have then continued its flight with the help of an additional rocket stage.

Preliminary reports from Russia indicate that one of four rocket's steering engines had failed. Proton's third stage is equipped with one main engine and four small movable nozzles used to steer the vehicle in flight. A failure of one of them could lead to the loss of stability and chaotic tumbling of the booster in flight.

The ill-fated rocket carried the Ekspress-AM4R communications satellite built by the European space consortium Airbus Defense and Space for the Russian satellite communications organization. Ironically, Russia ordered the new satellite as a replacement to the Ekspress-AM4 spacecraft, which was also lost in a botched Proton mission in 2011.

The latest failure of Russia's commercial and military workhorse comes not even a year after another Proton rocket crashed just seconds after liftoff. That accident happened July 2 of last year, destroying a trio of Russian navigation satellites. Since then, the veteran rocket had completed eight successful missions. Overall, Proton-M has suffered a total of 10 failures during its 115 launches since beginning of 2001.

The Russian space agency has seen three different heads in the past five years. The leadership of GKNPTs Khrunichev in Moscow, which builds the Proton rocket, was also replaced. Despite increasing funding and repeated efforts by Moscow officials to fix the situation and hold top managers personally responsible for failures, crashes continue unabated. Recently, a critical Russian module for the International Space Station had to be grounded for several years because of major contamination during its assembly at GKNPTs Khrunichev. The company's key sub-contractors supplying engines and flight computers were also found responsible for poor quality control, resulting in costly accidents.

To make matters worse, the latest Proton failure happened against a tense diplomatic backdrop and a worsening political climate for the Russian commercial efforts in space. The threat of US sanctions in response to the Russian annexation of Crimea earlier this year left Proton vulnerable on the highly competitive international launch market. Since most commercial communications satellites include parts built in the United States, their operators have to obtain export licenses before the delivery of their payloads to the Proton's launch site in Kazakhstan. As new American companies, like SpaceX, are entering the crowded market, their allies in the US Congress might have an extra incentive to put a hurdle in front of a powerful Russian competitor.

So far, the International Launch Service, a Virginia-based company that markets Proton to commercial clients outside Russia, said that it had been unaffected by anti-Russian sanctions. However a mere threat of sanctions could be enough to scare off at least some of Proton's future passengers.

Anatoly Zak is an editor of RussianSpaceWeb.com and the author of Russia in Space, the Past Explained, the Future Explored.